In Faith In Yourself and the faith pages on our website, this is roughly what we mean when we use these words in this resource:

Religion

Some people use this word to refer to a particular tradition, such as Christianity, or Islam. We’re using this word to mean religious practice very broadly, such as to talk about the things that people do that we associate with religion, like communal worship, prayer and following specific teachings.

Faith

This word is often used in this resource as a replacement word for ‘religion’. This is because ‘faith’ has less of a sense of being rigid and defined, so sometimes it’s easier for people to identify themselves with it.

Belief

We’re using this word both to mean belief in a particular religious tradition or set of teachings, but also to talk about what people think about things more generally. For example, you could say ‘I have Hindu beliefs’, and you’d be talking about beliefs coming from the Hindu tradition. However, you could ask ‘what beliefs do you have about the Torah?’, and you’d be asking about what someone thinks about the Torah – many Jews have different beliefs about the Torah, and all of those beliefs are Jewish beliefs!